The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025
Nerolac's shade cards become DIY shopfronts for Kumbh vendors — Abby 2025 Grand Prix
At Maha Kumbh, foldable giant shade cards let street vendors rebuild their stalls as bright shops — 100M reached and a Grand Prix at Abby 2025.
Kansai Nerolac Paints
What it had to solve
At the Maha Kumbh Mela, India's largest religious gathering, thousands of street vendors sold from the floor with no signage, identity or self-esteem, lost among more than 100 brands. Nerolac, a paint brand competing for attention there, saw the overlooked vendors as its medium.
How it works
The Maha Kumbh Mela is India's largest religious gathering — a once-in-12-years flood of millions of pilgrims and a battlefield of more than 100 brands. Kansai Nerolac's idea began with the people other advertisers ignored: the street vendors selling from the floor with no signage, no identity and no self-esteem.
'Dukaan It Yourself' (DIY your shop) turned Nerolac's own product — its colour shade cards — into giant foldable retail units with eye-level displays, shelves, hooks, counters and storage. Vendors assembled the kits themselves, converting makeshift stalls into organised, vibrant shops, each one a live showcase of a Nerolac shade for the crowds walking past. The brand's media was the marketplace itself.
The campaign's award entry reports 100 million people reached and one million engagements over 45 days, vendor sales up 300%, 24% month-on-month sales growth in Uttar Pradesh and an 8% rise in spontaneous brand awareness. At Abby 2025 it won the Grand Prix in Brand Activation & Promotion, part of a 12-metal haul for the brand.
Why it lands
- The vendors were a human-scale medium: thousands of improvised shops became branded, living colour samples.
- The DIY mechanic made vendors co-creators, not passive billboards.
- Solving a real livelihood problem — identity, self-esteem, sales — made the brand's purpose concrete.
- A partnership with the festival authorities scaled the idea at zero media spend.
What it did
The campaign's award entry claims 100 million people reached and 1 million engagements over 45 days, vendor sales up 300%, 24% month-on-month sales growth in Uttar Pradesh and an 8% rise in spontaneous brand awareness; Abby 2025 gave it a Grand Prix in Brand Activation & Promotion as part of a 12-metal haul for the brand.
What you can take
Make the product demo the activation: the brand's own tool — shade cards — became the kit that solved a merchant's real problem, so the sales pitch and the good deed were the same object.
Since then
The sweep made the activation a template for Indian retail brand work — the Grand Prix and 12 total metals at Abby 2025 — and Nerolac framed the work as a movement championing small entrepreneurs rather than a one-off activation.
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